


hip to be square

by spock



Category: American Psycho - All Media Types, Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: (Guess the Fandom), Age Difference, Canon-Typical Behavior, Clothed Sex, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Power Dynamics, Rough Oral Sex, Sexual Inexperience, Size Difference, Stealth Fusion, Strangers to Antagonists with Benefits, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: There is an idea of a Tyrell Wellick, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real him, only an entity, something illusory, and though he can hide his cold gaze and one can shake his hand and feel flesh gripping theirs and maybe they can even sense their lifestyles are probably comparable: he simply is not there.
Relationships: Patrick Bateman/Tyrell Wellick
Comments: 18
Kudos: 21
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	hip to be square

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luneur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luneur/gifts).



It takes all of forty-seven minutes for E-Corp's weekly all-hands to devolve into side conversations. The loss of productivity heralded by the Marketing Director, her department's weekly update so predictable in its derailment that Tyrell doesn't need to check the time on his Apple Watch.

The junior associate to his left seems to have fallen in love with him sometime in the space between the last check-in and now, hovering close and hanging on each word as if anything Tyrell speaks as were gospel. For all that he's always rated himself above the rest of his peers, Tyrell has never been the particular brand of hilarious that would warrant the extended laughter this man's would suggest.

Price is in the office this week, returned from a vacation to Monte Carlo cut short for an emergency shit-fixing trip to Vienna. The expression, such as it is, fixed to his face indicates that hasn't listened to a thing said all morning, and it takes only the slightest movement from the door on the opposite end of the long off-center conference table they’re sat at for his attention to be completely lost. "Oh," Price says, cutting off the Director in the middle of her ROI break down, "Good, it's here."

Office assistants roll in glass-topped carts lined with juice — Urban Remedy, $75 a day with a suggested cleanse length of at least a week. Price starts in about how he's gotten into Juice while overseas on the canceled vacation which had been with a mistress aged younger than his 35-year-old daughter, and it's this more than anything that drains the last bit of fight out of Tyrell, resigned that this meeting has little hope of not rolling right into lunch.

Tyrell stands and makes his way over to the spread, feigning interest as an excuse to stretch his legs. The associate rises as well, hot on his heels and coming to a stop at Tyrell's elbow, the glint of the Jaeger-LeCoultre at his wrist catching in the light as he unscrews the lid from the juice he's just picked up. It's labeled After Party and glows a bright red behind the plastic; he starts to tell Tyrell all about how he was really into Juicing a few years ago, but the only way to truly partake is to source single-farm, hyper-local produce with heirloom certification.

"I bought one of the first dozen Juiceros," he says.

More of their coworkers start to join them, poking at the bottles. Tyrell imagines what small amount of effort might be required to slip botulinum toxin into a batch. Blame would be placed squarely at the feet of systemically lax quality oversight within the organics market.

"I never bought into the hype, honestly," Tyrell says, and it takes everything within him to make s sound self-deprecating rather than laced with the contempt threatening to consume him. "Filmjölk for me."

He grabs a bottle — Digestif with Probiotics; unironically shining pink like Pepto, Jesus — just to do something with his hands, ready to return to his seat and subtly fuck around on his phone beneath the semi-fogged glass-surfaced Isamu Noguchi inspired conference table they've recently installed within the room. He frowns when the cap won't seem to catch, thin recycled plastic failing to properly grip.

"Here," the associate says, "Let me help."

"No, it's—"

The lip of the bottle caves under the lid, bright pink juice bleeding into the front of Tyrell’s shirt, not unlike a crime scene suddenly illuminated under blacklight.

"Jävla tullar du mig?" Tyrell barks, voice sharp.

"Oh my _God_ ; I'm so sorry!"

Tyrell has to stop himself, breathing in deeply. His suit is from Hardy Amies, sporting extended natural shoulders cut just for him to stop flatteringly at his hips. He's left the buttons undone to reveal a crisp white Boris Bidjan Saberi shirt underneath, a playful addition to the classic line of the Aimes, guaranteed to garner an appreciative once-over at the unexpected yet tasteful pairing of the two styles. The stain makes him look like a stabbing victim. "It's fine."

Colby's voice comes from Tyrell's other elbow. "Oh, that's rotten luck," he says. "That's a good suit."

He's surrounded by idiots. "Not like it's one of a kind." The sarcasm goes over their heads. The associate fists a handful of napkins and seems to be working up the nerve to blot at the savagery of his crime, but thinks the better of it when he reads whatever expression Tyrell hasn't quite managed to bite back from his face.

"You ever been to that cleaner uptown?" Colby carries on, blind to the precipice Tyrell is teetering on. "They can get just about any stain out."

* * *

_That cleaner uptown_ ends up being a laundromat where not a one of the staff speaks any semblance of English. Tyrell's limited handle on Cantonese — more driven by his ego during an internship in Hong Kong than any sort of formal necessity and only mildly upkept through infrequent dips into the dark web in recent years — is of no use here, especially given that these days the only chance he has to speak it aloud are in short bouts during business dinners, shared with men with clear pronunciation and a propensity to switch to near-perfect, lightly-accented English once Tyrell has successfully gained their respect by averting embarrassing himself during native hellos. The staff’s Mandarin flows from their tongues, rapid-fire with any given word indecipherable to Tyrell's laymen ears.

"How in the fuck are you the best," Tyrell asks, annunciating each word as clearly as possible, doing his best to remove his own accent and fighting not to raise his voice, as if it'll make any difference, "if you cannot understand what in the hell anyone is saying?"

"The key isn't to give any direction," a voice from behind him says. Tyrell hadn't even heard the stupid bell overhead the door chime. "Just let them do whatever they want. It usually works."

The man has good taste in clothing; the off-cream Versace pullover he's sporting nearly placing him as an off-duty model, if only he were younger. As it stands, he looks distinguished despite the casual dress, the air of a man so wealthy he doesn't need a suit to extrude the power he must wield. "Is that so?" Tyrell asks.

"It is." He's amused, towering next to Tyrell. He drops a crumbled assortment of sheets on the counter. "多謝." The phrase is said around a smile, wide and sharp, unexpectedly threatening. The entire mood in the shop changes the moment it's been spoken. The woman behind the counter snatches the bundle and escapes to the back of the store, while the man hastens to ring him up and pass over the chit that'll allow him to collect his order once it's done.

He takes it without a word of thanks, focusing back on Tyrell. He nods to Tyrell's jacket and shirt still spread out across the counter on display, an open-casket funeral. "What happened here?"

Tyrell feels his annoyance return at the man's familiarity. "I murdered someone," he says.

Something colors the man's smile, changing it. "Oh, is that all?" He turns back to the old man at the till, nodding at him. "Charge it all to my account." His long finger points to Tyrell's jacket for a moment and then back, tapping his own chest.

The man twists his wrist, uses his other hand to tap a finger against the screen — Apple Watch Edition, solid gold, pure fashion over function; couldn't be someone from the technosphere — to light it up so he can read the time. "Have you got any lunch plans?"

* * *

They end up at Park Avenue Spring. It's the reason Tyrell had accepted the invitation, subjugating himself to the incessant, maddening small-talk he’s been on the receiving end of for the duration of the Uber ride over.

In between observations of banal nothingness, the man had found the time to introduce himself — Patrick Bateman, of Pierce, Bateman, & Pierce — and it was only with the name that Tyrell had been able to place them; E-Corp had used PBP for a number of their acquisitions right around the time that Tyrell had joined the company. The entire situation is surreal, not anything Tyrell might've ever dreamt he'd care about when in Sweden, but he's been in New York long enough to know that there are some invitations you just don't turn down.

They're seated at a table near the room's center. Tyrell wonders what they must look like; Bateman relaxed and sporty in that pullover and matching lounge pants, Tyrell still in his Hardy Amies forest green trousers, a black silk Valentino button-down hastily grabbed from the closet in his office to replace his stained shirt and jacket before he’d made the trek uptown to the laundromat

He probably comes across as Bateman's kept boy. There would certainly be worse things to be. Bateman orders the wine selection for both of them.

Tyrell zones, eyes wandering to the tables around them, trying to see if any of the faces sat amongst them are worth recognizing, Bateman's talking about where he'd vacationed over the winter and whatever else he’d been saying before they were seated

"—thought about fucking her after the body'd gone cold, but that seemed too gauche even for me."

Tyrell blinks.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says. "What the fuck?"

The artifice of Bateman's smile doesn't hit Tyrell until just then, as it morphs from whatever _that_ was into something real, genuine. "Just checking that you were listening."

Tyrell feels — a lot of things, all at once. Most of them at odds with one another.

He decides to land on fascinated.

* * *

Tyrell expects to see him at the laundromat when he goes to reclaim his suit, but Bateman isn't there, little more than a ghost who, true to his word, picked up the tab. For all that the City is as densely packed as it is, their particular social circles intimately small, Tyrell never sees Bateman again in the wild.

Instead they start to run into each other at the early summer tech events, though Tyrell is occupied enough with actual schmoozing assignments that they do little more than nod in one another's direction, pointed acknowledgment of existence paired alongside commiserate smiles here and there across crowded rooms, secure in the knowledge that the two of them were outsiders in some weird, shared way that Tyrell still hasn't been able to pin down.

Tonight it's a Gala, bumping elbows at the open bar, finally close enough to speak.

"Fancy seeing you here, Wellick," Bateman says. "Didn't know you knew Luis."

Tyrell gives him a tight smile. "I think everyone knows Luis."

Bateman taps the edge of their glasses together and gives him one of those fake smiles, sans teeth this time, mouth a thin line. "How're things with E-Corp these days?"

"Like you give a shit." Tyrell licks his lips after he's taken a sip of his drink. It's early in the evening, but he’s been on edge all day. A few nights ago he'd been approached by an anonymous someone, a quick point of contact sent to the one email address he never shares with anyone, never uses for anything. A question, nothing more, but it's been swirling in his head ever since, wondering when they'll try to reach out to him again.

It's thrown off his sleep schedule, up all hours of the night trying to backchannel the connection, take some control. He hasn’t managed to find a way in yet.

He's interested.

For the first time in years, he feels like someone's issued a challenge that he needs to ride to.

Bateman's smile sharpens, closer to the real thing. "Guilty."

"Let's not waste either of our time pretending then."

Tyrell has to tip his head back a little to meet Bateman's eyes as he crowds Tyrell closer to the bar, breaking into Tyrell’s space. He smells incredible, a musky base scent, yet sharp. Tyrell feels his body curving into Bateman's without meaning to. "What is that?" he asks.

"Aesop," Bateman says, not missing a beat. "Tacit." His hand settles onto the bar to Tyrell's right. "Now come on," he nods his chin down at Tyrell, stepping even closer. His voice is pitched low, enough to stop it from carrying. "What's got you in such a mood?"

"Who says I'm in a mood?" Again, he wonders what sort of picture they paint.

Bateman reaches to Tyrell's left to set his drink on the counter, leaving his hand resting there even after he's done so, boxing Tyrell in fully now. His hair has grown since the last time Tyrell saw him, though the research he'd done after their lunch date had informed Tyrell that Bateman never really gave up the length that he’d worn and was popularized in the 80s.

The beard is new. Tyrell’s never been one to be anything less than clean-shaven, himself.

That said, he’s always enjoyed the feel of stubble against his skin.

"I like to flatter myself that I understand you enough to pick up on these sorts of things," Bateman says.

Tyrell brings his drink — Basil Smash, ginger beer substituted in for the usual simple syrup, something suggested to him by a waiter the last time he'd been in Athens; glass currently dangling from his fingertips between their chests, likely the only thing keeping Bateman from closing that bit of distance between them, if he allows himself the same level of presumptuousness towards Bateman’s sensibilities — to his lips and takes a generous mouthful, savoring the burn against his tongue before swallowing. "I only have a stomach for flattery when I'm getting paid."

Hunger bleeds itself into Bateman's eyes, everything about him that had been hovering right at the edge of predatory crossing that final line. It isn’t that the man himself shifts, so much as the air around him does. "Well," Bateman says. "We can always change that."

Tyrell laughs. "I doubt you could afford me."

"Well _hello_!" Luis appears to their left, positively glowing, that pea-brained mind of his no doubt bursting with ideas at whatever he must be imagining Bateman and he were speaking about.

"Luis." They say it at the same time, in much the same tone.

Luis makes a delighted noise.

Tyrell hates him. Every time he’s had the misfortune of encountering the man, Luis will make some allusions to Tyrell's success using a German turn of phrase, as if the language were at all similar to Swedish, or as if either of them spoke it, clearly thinking himself to be clever whilst being utterly resolute in his inability to ever read Tyrell’s utter disdain for him.

As if on cue, Luis says, "Junges wunderkind Wellick! How lovely of you to spare some of your valuable time _rubbing elbows_ with us old men!"

Tyrell finishes off his drink and makes sure the bartender meets his eye, shaking his glass to indicate that he'll take another.

* * *

Another message, another all-nighter.

Tyrell drags himself into the office with bags under his eyes, decked out in a sapeur blue Homme Plissé Issey Miyake suit with the intention of its vividness highlighting the natural pallor of his skin to distract from his sleep depravity. The summer's been unseasonably hot; his fädernesland will serve as good enough excuse as to why he's been looking increasingly haggard as any.

"No meetings."

He barks it to Elizabeth as he stomps past her desk, uninterested in the usual good-mornings. "No calls. I'm debugging."

She knows better than to question him.

He puts his headphones in and turns the volume on his phone up, logging into his terminal software.

**your 1 pm is here, mr wellick**

Elizabeth's chat pops up in the corner of his screen, bringing him out of the trance he's fallen into. He frowns.

**no meetings**

**said it's time sensitive  
said he told you about this last night**

Last night.

Tyrell stands up with a jolt, pulling his headphones off and running a hand through his hair, pushing it back from where it'd fallen into his face as he'd sat curved over his keyboard for hours, motionless beyond the tap of his fingers.

Pulse racing as he gulps air in through his mouth, Tyrell finds that he has to remind himself how to breathe through his nose. He doesn't know what to do with himself. Should he sit? Stand? He wishes that he hadn't worn the summer suit after all, feeling too much like a little boy. He walks to the rack set up near his door, shrugging his jacket over the pleated platinum grey v-neck that'd walked down the runway with the suit, then returns to his keyboard, typing one-handed as he uses the other to make sure the notches in his lapel lay flat.

**send him in**

He sits in his chair, cycling through a few options of what to do with his hands. By the time the door opens he's settled on his right palm laying flat on the desk, left elbow resting securely at the wooden edge, pointer and ring finger supporting the weight of his head right at the temporomandibular joint, a sort of modern, ergonomic reimagining of Rodin's Le Penseur.

It's Bateman.

"You motherfucker."

Bateman blinks. "Were you expecting someone else?" His long legs make quick work of the space between the door and Tyrell's desk, undoing the single button on his deep grey Maison Margiela blazer, seating himself easily into one of the two chairs sat in front of it. "I did text you," he says.

Tyrell stands, fast enough that the blood rushes to his head. He rests both palms on his desk to support his weight. "My failure to reply didn't factor into your plans at all?"

Bateman leans back into the chair, smiling. "Not really."

"I'm busy." Tyrell steps around his desk to stand beside where Bateman's sat, glaring down at him.

"Nice legs."

"Can we do this some other time." It’s not a suggestion.

"Unfortunately not." Bateman stands up into the small square of space between Tyrell and the chair. Tyrell's chin is forced to rise with him, looking up at Bateman once he's reached his full height. "I've got a red-eye to London; won't be back for a month." He raises his pointer finger and taps it right at the hollow of Tyrell's exposed throat. "As fun as this as been, I don't like leaving these sorts of things unfinished."

"What sort of things?"

"Me getting you to suck my cock before I ship out," Bateman says. "Those sort of things."

Tyrell swings on him before he knows what he's doing. There isn't enough space between them for him to get much momentum, but it's as if Bateman had been expecting it, his elbow coming up to deflect Tyrell's fist, raising his other arm and delivering a harsh strike to Tyrell's windpipe that sends him sprawling onto the floor, landing flat on his ass.

Bateman's on him in a second, pinning the pair of Tyrell's hands to the floor with his own, faces close. "You ever heard of the Theban Band, Wellick?" He looks crazed, hair out of place and hanging down his forehead, around his cheeks. The whole lower half of his face is nothing but teeth, lips spread wide.

Tyrell knees him in the crotch, reveling in the pained-confusion that overtakes Bateman’s expression. He twists his right wrist free and shoves at Bateman's chest, rolling them so that Bateman's flat on his back on the floor, Tyrell hovering over him.

He kisses Bateman hard enough that their teeth catch, copper bursting bright onto his tongue, providing a rich backdrop to their kiss, though Tyrell hasn't the faintest if it's his or Bateman's blood that’s staining their mouths. The man's beard is rough against his cheeks and the burn of it ratchets up the feeling of desperation inside of Tyrell, his rage.

A well-placed yank on Bateman's middle allows them to roll again, Tyrell returned to his back. With Bateman above him, he's able to get his fingers into that too-long hair of his, grabbing fistfuls, taking control of the angle of their mouths. "Get your cock out," he speaks the words into Bateman's mouth.

Both of Bateman's hands go between them, working first his belt and then his fly. They don't stop kissing. Tyrell licks at his lips then tilts his head forward so that he can stare between their bodies, impressed with the strength Bateman must posses at his core, upper body perfectly stationary even as it remains a flat line, his weight balanced entirely with his knees and lower legs.

Tyrell wants to see what Bateman keeps under those suits of his. He brings his own hands between them just as Bateman's gotten his zipper undone, fingers making quick work at of Bateman's button-down. He shoves at the fabric once's he's done, making impatient noises into Bateman's mouth, urging him to take it and his blazer off all at once.

Bateman does as instructed, lifting to get his arms behind him, untangling the mess Tyrell's made, bringing his body into view.

The man's chest is — phenomenal.

The appreciation in Tyrell’s gaze does not go unnoticed. Bateman's mouth is a mess, lips swollen with abuse, beard tinged red by one or both of their blood. His smile is manic. "I've been able to do two-hundred crunches in under three minutes since the 80s," he says.

Tyrell hates him. Has hated the very idea of Patrick Batemans since he entered lågstadiet and realized that boys like him existed to serve as a benchmark for which Tyrell never managed to measure up favorably against no matter how hard he tried.

He’s needed to suck this man's dick since they met back in the laundromat.

It's with an undignified scramble that Tyrell raises onto his elbows. He grabs the end of Bateman's tie and pulls, constricting his airflow so that Bateman has no choice but to tumble forward, their mouths crashing together a third time. Tyrell uses his other hand to claw at the firm muscle of Bateman's pectorals, digging his nails in. He turns to bite at Bateman's neck, under the tidy line of his beard, wanting to leave marks, needing for those London fucks to see that Bateman was well-used before he'd come their way. "Stand the fuck up," Tyrell says.

Bateman does, long limbs unfolding until his hips are level with Tyrell's head where he's stood on the floor at his knees, Bateman’s cock thick and heavy where it juts out from the dark grey backdrop of his suit trousers, underwear nowhere to be found.

His eyes close at the sensation of Bateman's strong hands carding through his hair, fingers slotting together at the back of this neck.

"Not worried about getting that cute suit of yours mussed up?" Bateman asks, speaking down at him.

"I've got a line on a good dry cleaner."

Tyrell's got his mouth open and lined up, ready for the expected unexpectedness of Bateman yanking Tyrell's head to his groin, cock easily gliding along Tyrell's tongue and into the back of his throat. All the usual anxieties floating around his head — does he fit in, is his accent too thick, do the people around him like him, will anyone ever understand him, is there anything of substance about him for anyone to understand or like or fit in at all — leave. His entire being comes to center around a need to ruin Bateman for anyone else, to have him become so addicted to Tyrell that no other substitute will do, to get him to come so hard that even this fit body of his can't take it and he dies right there in Tyrell's office, an unfortunate complication for Tyrell to solve before leaving for the day.

He swallows.

It's like God himself is speaking directly to Tyrell when Bateman hisses around his teeth to say, "Fuck, I _knew_ you'd be good."

Bateman's hips start to move, all but fucking Tyrell's face. Tyrell lets him. Allows his mouth to water, jaw hanging slack. His hands play with Bateman's balls until enough spit has dribbled down the length of his cock to get them wet, slippery, and then Tyrell winds his arms around Bateman's trim waist to shove down the back of his trousers. With one hand digging bruises into the meat of Bateman's ass, the other sees two slick digits slipping up inside of him, uncaring for Bateman's prostate, wanting the man to feel the stretch of Tyrell inside of him, if only with his fingers.

Tyrell dresses to his left. He is hyper-aware of the hard line of his cock trapped against the unforgiving pleated fabric of his shorts, underwear damp. He can't bring himself to stop touching Bateman's perfect sculpture of a body long enough to see to his own pleasure, even as he tetters on the edge of pain with how badly he needs release.

He almost manages to convince himself that Bateman's orgasm is his own, the wide-open space of his office consumed with the animalistic grunts Bateman barks out as he finishes deep in the back of Tyrell's throat, holding Tyrell so close to his groin that Tyrell's world has no choice but to narrow down to the nest of hair there, surrounded by the scent of him.

Bateman releases him eventually, grip going slack. Tyrell sucks in deep lungfuls of hair and untangles his arms from Bateman's slacks, pulling his fingers free. He falls onto his back on the floor, mad with a need to get a hand on himself. He struggles to get his fingers to undo the fly of his shorts, lifting pathetically once he does, struggling anew to get both them and his underwear down his hips far enough to free his cock.

In the end, it's Bateman that takes him in hand, awkward, both too tight and too loose all at once, working with a downward grip in a rhythm that under normal circumstances would do nothing for Tyrell at all. In his current state, it's more than enough. Tyrell comes all over the hair dusting his thighs for what feels like hours.

When he opens his eyes he can see Bateman sat beside him, staring at his come-wet hand in fascination.

Tyrell’s lips feel raw when he licks them, wetting his mouth so that he can speak. "Haven't been with many men, have you?" His voice is a wreck.

Bateman looks down at him. It's the first time Tyrell has ever seen him look embarrassed, or whatever passes for it on his face. "Not many," he says, cagey.

Tyrell wonders if he's meant to be flattered. "Finally gotten over yourself to make up for lost time?"

He'd meant it as a dig, but Bateman looks to take it as a challenge. He brings his hand up to his lips and licks Tyrell's come into his mouth. "An acquired taste developed with age," he says, once he's finished.

It makes Tyrell laugh. The absurdity. All of it.

Bateman checks his watch and then looks around the room, eyes stopping at where his shirt and jacket landed near the windowed wall at the corner of Tyrell's office. "I really do have that flight." He stays flat on his back as Bateman goes to collect the upper portion of his outfit, watching him move around the office. He manages to make getting dressed look as sexual as a striptease would be on anyone else.

With the need out of his system, Tyrell’s higher brain function returns to him, and in the same instant, his heart starts to race, an idea occurring to him. Could —

“I didn’t get any message from you last night,” he says.

Bateman doesn’t pause in doing the buttons up at his wrists. “No?” His suit jacket settles easily over his shoulders, not looking like it’d spent any length of time on the floor. The last thing he does is tuck his cock back into his trousers, redoing his fly. “Strange.”

“What do you think about God, Bateman?”

That makes him stop. He walks back over to Tyrell, considering. Tyrell feels rooted to the spot, paralyzed. He’s still naked from the waist down, shirt rucked up around his middle, jacket likely wrinkled to all hell.

He bends down and puts his hand to Tyrell’s throat, squeezing. “Didn’t take you for the religious guilt type, Wellick.” The pressure on Tyrell’s windpipe increases all of a sudden, vision flashing, before it’s gone, Bateman’s hand pulled free as he rises to stand again. “I thought you Swedes were meant to be the secular sort.”

What a waste, Tyrell thinks. He should have known better. For all that he plays at saying the right sort of things, Bateman isn’t nearly clever enough; he doesn’t have the sort of resolve to even entertain the ideas that Tyrell’s late-night, anonymous messenger has been circling.

He isn’t anything close to the God that seems to have chosen Tyrell to be his prophet.

Tyrell laughs. “You’d be surprised,” he says. “Have a nice flight.”

He leaves at five on the dot, unwilling to be in the office a moment longer. He hadn't dared to log into his personal account at work, is eager to see what might be waiting for him when he returns home. His assistant is packing up her own things when he steps out of his office.

"Elizabeth, when I tell you no meetings," he says, "I mean no meetings."

She looks at him, frowning. Her cellphone suddenly rings in her hand, lighting up as she glances down to see who it is. "Um, sure thing, Mr. Wellick," she says, thumb already swiping across the screen to answer. "Have a good night."


End file.
